Philadelphia Airport expects a bump in travelers this Thanksgiving week

Philadelphia International Airport is expecting a 12% increase in travelers this Thanksgiving week, as the holiday is anticipated nationally to be among the busiest for travelers in the last two decades.

From Wednesday, Nov. 23, through Sunday, Nov. 27, the Philadelphia airport expects about 362,300 passengers to arrive and depart, said spokesperson Shawn Hawes. About 867,000 travelers are anticipated during the entire Thanksgiving holiday period, defined as Friday, Nov. 18, to Tuesday, Nov. 29.

While the predicted number of Thanksgiving week travelers is 12% more than the airport saw during the same period last year, Hawes said it is 18% lower than during the last pre-pandemic Thanksgiving week in 2019, “a record-setting passenger volume year” for the airport.

Across the country, nearly 55 million people plan to travel from Wednesday to Sunday of Thanksgiving week, according to the AAA travel forecast released Nov. 15. The estimate marks a 1.5% increase over 2021, according to the organization, and represents 98% of pre-pandemic travel volume.

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While most of those traveling 50 miles or more are driving to their destinations, 4.5 million U.S. travelers are expected to fly, an increase of 8% over last year, according to AAA. With all pandemic restrictions lifted, train, bus, and cruise ship travel has seen the biggest jump this Thanksgiving, with an increase of 23% compared to last year.

In South Philadelphia, Remy Perez, 25, said she was hoping to travel to Pittsburgh to be with her family this Thanksgiving, especially since her sister who has thyroid cancer is to have surgery later this month.

Without a car, however, Perez said the cost of transportation, coupled with the logistics of finding pet care for her dog, proved too much.

Thanksgiving snuck up on her, she said, and perhaps she started looking for tickets too late.

“The Amtrak was a little more expensive than I would like to spend money on right now,” she said, adding that bus options were also limited. “I’m hoping that maybe over Christmas or another holiday I can travel.”

Amtrak ridership is currently at about 80% of what it was pre-pandemic, said spokesperson Beth Toll, who declined to say how many passengers were expected to use 30th Street Station this Thanksgiving week.

As of Nov. 16, Amtrak tickets from Philadelphia to Boston started at more than $220 one-way on the day before Thanksgiving, and many trains were sold out. Amtrak trains to Pittsburgh are more limited, with many direct trains sold out during the peak times Thanksgiving week and others $100 or more one-way at off-peak times, as of Thursday.

The cost of air travel has increased this year, too: As of early November, the average cost of a domestic flight around Thanksgiving was $282, up 17% from 2021 and in line with pre-pandemic, 2019 prices around the same time, according to the travel app Hopper.